There are no rules during the holiday season – or in any season, actually – which dictate that you cannot be both sad and thankful, or both irritated and gracious, or both bitter and supportive, at the same time.

This morning I had to go to the grocery store because I was out of coffee. The storefront had several festive (read: Christmasy) wreaths above its doors. I’m not sure why this bothered me today; stores around here have had Christmas decorations up since the day after Halloween. Somehow it hit differently today; the little sign in the middle of the wreaths did say “Happy Holidays” but with the red motif all over them, it was obvious which holiday they meant. Again – normally I appreciate it banally as an outsider and just keep walking, but today it got under my skin. I don’t even know why; what do I want exactly, for them to acknowledge “the blue holiday” as well as the “red” one? Do I want a wreath with dreidels on it hanging right up there too? (I’ll admit that would be thrilling, albeit rather weird, but I won’t hold my breath.) I don’t know, maybe a sleep deprived Thanksgiving break has finally caught up with me. Maybe the bad dreams about my family all week, and the jumbo variety pack of stressors I’m carting around, have finally caught up with me and made me too hypersensitive today.

But the truth is, there are no rules when it comes to handling your own emotional support needs. There are expectations – for example, be respectful to others, put your grocery cart back where it belongs when you’re done putting your stuff in the car, and so on. But there’s no rule that says you have to like all the holiday hoopla. No rule that says that you’re a bad sport if you get bothered by it for whatever reason at whatever point. For that matter, there are no rules that dictate what an adult can and can’t do emotionally, any time of the year.

I spent most of my childhood, my teenage years, and my young adulthood making do with as minimal comfort as I could manage to survive on. Now in my thirties, I have a tendency to seek comfort in a lot of different ways, some healthy (e.g., therapy, cooking, painting, writing), and some less so (e.g., not always eating the right things, not exercising as much as I should, dissociating a little too much). I manage pretty well most of the time, but at other times, I feel like an inherently broken person trying to hold all my fragmented pieces together and keep them all aligned properly. At those times, one well-placed trigger will shatter me, and the fractured pieces of myself all come crashing down, and I have to pick them up and reset them all over again. I don’t always have the wherewithal to seek comfort from the usual, societally accepted, “adultish” channels at those times.

But recently I remembered…there are no rules for that. There are expectations (e.g., don’t eat too much sugar, you’re diabetic, that would be bad), but, as long as I find comfort in something that does not harm myself or anyone else…it’s okay.

Last week, I saw a stuffed animal in Target that I loved, and my kid had not been interested in. So I put the stuffed animal back…but for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My kid may not have wanted it, but, I did. I was a grown woman who shouldn’t buy a stuffed animal for herself though…right?

Wrong. No rules. I went back the next day and, luckily, he was still there. So I scooped him up, and gave him a hug, and felt the tiniest release of pain right there in the store. I knew he was meant to be mine, regardless of my age or whatever “supposed to” nonsense had interfered before. So I bought him. Not for my kid, not for any kid, but for me.

Rest assured, I’ve been doing other, more “mature” stuff too – I’ve cooked, I’ve painted (see my latest painting, “Shattered”, here on my portfolio page, I think you have to scroll down to the bottom), now I’ve written. I have a therapy session coming up this week. I’ve also done nearly all of the responsible things I was supposed to do this past week (I’m looking at you, report cards!). So, I’m okay. But what’s particularly helpful right now is remembering that there are no rules – it’s okay to have mixed feelings about stuff, and it’s okay to have an occasional indulgence that helps you feel better, as long as it doesn’t bring harm to you or others.

There are no rules that say an adult can’t have a stuffed animal. To anyone who disagrees, I bet my new friend, this beautiful rainbow maned lion (whose name is still undetermined at the moment), would have a few things to say about it.